Assessment of comorbidities in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a cross-section study

Abstract

Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is common and usually coexists with other diseases. The aim of this study was to assess comorbidities in patients with COPD. Patients and methods This is a cross-sectional controlled study of comorbidities in patients with COPD that was carried out on 200 patients with COPD and 180 non-COPD patients as control. They were admitted to or investigated in outpatient clinic of Chest Disease Department of Assiut Hospital, Al-Azhar University, during the period from November 2016 to May 2018. A patient with COPD was defined as a smoker with forced expiratory volume in first second/forced vital capacity less than 0.7, and comorbidities were defined based on objective laboratory findings and questionnaires. Results This study included 380 patients, comprising 200 patients with COPD (75% males and 25% females, with mean age of 62±10.1 years) and 180 non-COPD patients (76.7% males and 23.3% females, with mean age of 61.1±5.6 years). The most common comorbidities reported in our COPD population versus non-COPD in decreasing order of frequency were hypertension (40 vs. 30%) followed by dyslipidemia (35 vs. 30%), asthma (30 vs. 13.8%), gastroesophageal reflux disease (30 vs. 16.1%), obesity (22.5 vs. 20%), bronchiectasis (21 vs. 6.1%), diabetes mellitus (19 vs. 12.2%), anemia (19 vs. 12.2%), ischemic heart disease (17 vs. 10%), and pneumonia (15.5 vs. 7.8%). Conclusion COPD is more common in smoker old aged male individuals, and the most common comorbid conditions associated with COPD are hypertension, dyslipidemia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, diabetes mellitus, and ischemic heart disease.

Keywords

• assessment
• comorbidity
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease